San Juan amputee tells ‘real’ story behind ‘Amazing Race’

Share this:

Sarah Reinertsen is a triathlete and an amputee. She recently spoke to the Orange County chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators, a group that agreed to sponsor a triathlon in San Diego put on by the Challenged Athletes Foundation.

Sarah Reinertsen prepares to head into the ocean.

Sound

The gallery will resume inseconds

Sarah Reinertsen was born with a leg malformity that led to an amputation when she was 7. Since then Reinertsen has finished several marathons and the Kona Iron Man challenge. Her first book, "In a Single Bound," was published in September.

Sarah Reinertsen didn't let the loss of her leg at age 7 stop her from completing several marathons and triathalons. She moved to San Juan Capistrano for the city's extensive hiking trails and winding sidewalks, she said.

When she and her fiance decided to settle down two months ago, Sarah Reinertsen knew she wanted to live in San Juan Capistrano.

“I love it,” she said of her new home. “For me as an athlete, I love the different trails around here you can run on. Just the horse trails, the bike trails and sidewalks, there’s so much to explore. It’s like a hub here. Now I feel like I need to take on horseback riding, too. And golf.”

Horseback riding and golf? Just two more sports for a triathlete. After running, swimming and bicycling for 15 straight hours, Reinertsen became the first person with an amputation above the knee to finish the grueling Ironman triathlon in Kona, Hawaii in 2005.

She was on “The Amazing Race,” too, and lasted six episodes with colleague, prosthetist and bodybuilder Peter Harsch.

“They always have a funny gay couple and a bickering married couple, and a father/daughter combo,” Reinertsen said of the show. “So it was me, an amputee, and my friend who is a body builder and he’s also a certified prosthetist. I thought, ‘this guy is awesome. He can fix my leg in any part of the world.”

But there was one hitch, she says—the teammates had to pretend to be in love.

“We were not really a dating couple, but the slot for the show was for a dating couple,” she said. “Reality TV—I like to say whose reality is it? We worked for the same company and inter-office romance is against the rules.”

She said she gets along great with Harsch, but when he started yelling at her to motivate her, people got the wrong idea.

“It exploded,” she said. “He treated me no differently than any of his other friends. It started looking like, ‘Who is this guy yelling at the one-legged girl.’ Then it was like a relationship—that was never really there—unraveling on national TV.”

And when the show is over, during televised interviews, she had to keep the schtick up, she says: “We played our parts, we answered the questions like, ‘We’re kind of sick of each other, but we’re making it work!”

Now Reinertsen is a motivational speaker and a spokesperson for the Challenged Athletes Foundation. She recently spoke in front of the Orange County chapter of the Association of Legal Administrators. After talking with the group, they decided to help sponsor in the San Diego Triathlon Challenge, put on by CAF.

Reinertsen lost her leg at age seven.

“I was born and raised in New York,” she said. “My leg was amputated at the age of seven. I was born with a tissue disorder, so my left leg was shorter than my right leg. At first they corrected it by putting on a knee brace. Eventually… they decided we had a choice to either amputate and get a better prosthetic or leave it.”

At the time, a better prosthetic meant a wooden leg with two hinges, she said. Doctors showed her how to walk on her new leg, but the seven-year-old Sarah had no idea how to run on it. Then her father introduced her to a woman who ran on her prosthesis.

Society has come a long way for athletes with disabilities, Reinertsen said. Artificial limbs are stronger, more versatile and more reliable.

But there are still problems. Most insurance doesn’t cover running legs, she said.

“They’ll get me a leg that gets me from the couch to the fridge, but they’re not going to get me a running prosthetic or a racing wheelchair,” she said. “I see the impact and I know the impact from my own life. One piece of equipment—that tennis wheel chair, that basketball wheelchair—how it can open up somebody’s world.”